CIT-U faces tall order

THE Cebu Institute of Technology-University will play its first game for this season’s Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) today. And of all the teams, they had to play the highly-favored University of the Visayas (UV) Green Lancers today at the Cebu Coliseum.

UV will shoot for its second win.

The last time both teams faced each other was in the Partners Cup finals, where UV swept CIT-U in the best of three finals series.

In the opening game, defending juniors division champions UV Baby Lancers will play for their third straight win against the struggling University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USPF) Baby Panthers in the curtain-raiser game at 5 p.m.

Inspired by the victory of the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R) Jaguars over the highly favored Southwestern University (SWU) last Saturday, the Wildcats are also looking to score an upset over the highly favored Lancers.

CIT-U coach Gilbert Demape is expected to make full use of the new center Zandro Palileo, who saw action with the USJ-R Jaguars in the pre-season tournament.

Palileo’s presence will give more muscles to the Wildcats’ interior defense and will likewise ease the load of lanky forward Allan Dimco who sparingly plays center for the smaller CIT-U.

However, after the lessons learned from the first game, UV coach Felix “Donbel” Belano Jr. is expected to have his Lancers play more maturely and accurately at both ends of the floor.

UV tower Steve Cedrick Akomo is also expected to display his full potential, while the rest of the Lancers hope to play a more composed ball game.

Game time is scheduled at 6:45 p.m.